Training & fun centre under a roof

Siliguri, May 15: The Terai Group today opened a table tennis academy, a recreation centre for senior citizens and a vocational training institute for women under the Amit Agarwala Foundation.

All three facilities will be run from the Amit Agarwala Banga Bhawan at Deshbandhupara, which is available on hire for social programmes.

“From today, the building, apart from hosting social events, will also serve as a table tennis academy, a recreational centre for senior persons and a vocational training institute for women,” said Ajit Agarwala, the chairman-cum-managing director of Terai Group which has stakes in tea, real estate and steel.

The Foundation is named after Agarwala’s son Amit who died at the age of 30 five years ago.

Sources in the Terai Group said Siliguri-based coach Bharati Ghosh would run the paddlers’ academy. Students of the academy will be charged a nominal fee. “At the vocational institute, women, particularly those from the weaker sections will be trained in sewing, stitching and computer,” a source said.

The recreational centre for senior citizens will be free. “Members would be entitled to use the library and the reading room, watch television and play indoor games,” a representative of the group said.

Ministers Gautam Deb, Madan Mitra and Manas Bhunia were present along with Siliguri MLA and SJDA chairman Rudranath Bhattacharya during the opening of the facilities.

Bhunia requested Agarwala to set up a super-speciality hospital in Siliguri under the Foundation. North Bengal development minister Gautam Deb asked the business community to make investments in north Bengal.

“Much like the Terai Group and Ajit Agarwala, it is time for you to come forward and make fresh investments in north Bengal,” he told an assembly of over 300 entrepreneurs.